When the Maestro Changes the Key

In 1741, George Frideric Handel was broke, paralyzed by debt, and half-convinced his career was over. Then a librettist named Charles Jennens handed him a scripture-based text and asked him to set it to music. Handel could have refused. He could have insisted on an opera — the genre that had made him famous. Instead, he obeyed the prompting before him and sat down to compose.

For twenty-four days, Handel barely ate or slept. He wrote with a furious, surrendered energy that his servant described as almost otherworldly. When he finished the "Hallelujah" chorus, Handel reportedly said with tears streaming down his face, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

The result was Messiah — arguably the most beloved choral work in Western history, performed thousands of times every year for nearly three centuries.

But here is what strikes me: Handel's obedience required him to set aside what he wanted to write in favor of what he was given to write. He did not compose Messiah out of ambition. He composed it out of submission to a calling that interrupted his plans.

Obedience rarely looks like a dramatic moment of sacrifice. More often, it looks like sitting down at the work God has placed in front of you — even when you had something else in mind. The Almighty does not always explain the symphony He is composing through your life. He simply asks you to play the next note He has written.